January 20, 2011
Not Yet
A flamboyant 90 year old with flaming red hair was sitting in a wheelchair at the radiology department of the hospital. Discussing her hair color with the receptionist she said, “I’m just not ready to go grey yet.” I so wanted to ask, ‘And just when DO you suppose you might be ready?’ Sadly, we often hear folks resist the Spirit by using the same reasoning.
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Gail;
-----Reality has news for this 90 year old lady. She is gray. The dye in her hair is flaming red. And reality has news for those who resist the Spirit of God relying upon her reasoning. The Spirit makes full use of them, ready or not. “For the scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.’ So then he has mercy upon whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills.” (Rom 9:17-18) We perceive in our minds a readiness or a resistance to God’s Spirit, but presently, whichever it be, it is by His will. His Spirit still has His way with us. It is not by our resistance to or acceptance of His Spirit that we are used by God. Paul made this point, then stated, “You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?’ But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me thus?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use? What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction, in order to make known the riches of His glory for the vessels of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?” (Rom 9:19-24) Predestination or not, God made a plan before the foundation of the earth, and we will all function precisely as He planned.
-----I am not a Deist. Nor do I hold the teachings of predestination. I believe entirely in man’s free will and in his being predestined. I only think the fact that each and every person makes a completely personal choice in every decision combined with the fact that every person’s decision is made precisely according to God’s plan evidences the completeness of God’s authority and perfection. To cry out either, “Predestination!” or “Free will!” is simply to confine God to a box in which He does not fit.
-----I see the human soul being like a sandwich. One slice of bread is his physical body connecting him to the material world. The other slice is his spirit connecting him to the spiritual world. The meatloaf and Mayonnaise in between is his mind and emotions being made of his interactions through the two slices. We understand our mental interactivity with the spiritual existence much less than we understand its interactivity with the physical world because our senses are made for the physical world, the place of our abode. Yet there has been much observed of souls consumed by interaction with the spiritual world. The man of the Gerasenes’ country possessed by Legion, for instance, and the many other demon possessed folks of whom we‘ve heard, and John, Paul, Peter, and the many other Holy Spirit possessed ones, too, all are evidence of the meatloaf and Mayonnaise interacting with a spirit world. We know too little about this slice of bread to deny that God makes whatever use of it He deems. Therefore I am convinced He has His way with us regardless of our meatloaf’s resistance to or acceptance of His Spirit. Like our hair is its own color no matter the color of the dye in it, we are dead or alive by the absence or presence of His Spirit in our bread.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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